Relentless
I started my new chemo last week, and while I knew things weren’t looking great, I had some hope it could limit growth and I’d get a bit more time. I did ok on a milder dose, though my body has been pretty fatigued—which is common as cancer grows. Then a stomach bug hit our family last weekend. The inflammation in my bowels, combined with a pelvic tumor, led to a bowel obstruction. I went to the ER Halloween night and had emergency surgery Nov 1—two years to the day since my hysterectomy, which is when this all started. Six abdominal surgeries for cancer, plus my two c-sections. My belly has been put through it.
I’m in the hospital recovering and am starting hospice care either at home early this week, or inpatient if I’m not ready to leave. I’m having trouble getting water and food down. The scans revealed the tumors in my liver doubled in size in just a few weeks.
It is devastating to be recovering from open abdominal surgery in the last couple weeks of my life. It makes it really difficult to cuddle my kids—the thing I want to do most right now. A bowel obstruction is something I had really hoped to avoid but they’re relatively common with LMS. My surgeon gave me her cell number and said: call me if you ever end up in the ER for this. And the day I did she was on a flight to Ireland for a big sarcoma conference. Just my luck. Another surgeon handled the procedure well, but it was pretty frustrating I couldn’t have the person I know perform it.
I’ve heard really good things about hospice and am feeling good about that path. The comments, emails, messages, video messages that you have sent have just been incredible to me. It is so wonderful to hear from all of you—about some of the impact I’ve had and to have my memory jogged in all these fun ways. My friends are such amazing writers! I know people often say they don’t have words to respond to this moment, but you all really do, and they have meant so much to me during this time. And I love the response to the maple leaf metaphor. 🍁
And now for some pics. A vampire and a witch!
Jean and Tom came to see us!
James’ photos from a few weeks ago:
My friends Jen and Will gifted us a photo shoot and I happened to be friends with the photographer, Rachel!
Sending bold red orange maple leaf love to you all,
Molly
Love you Molly! Keep fighting.
ReplyDeleteYou are such an inspiration, Molly. I am proud to call you my sister. This is absolutely not fair but I feel so lucky to have you as my sister and it is incredible that in this sea of shit, you’re still able to find that sparkling pearl at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t have words for where we are today with this relentless diagnosis - but these past 2 years have shown the depth of who are you as a person to me and how fucking strong and impactful you are - it’s inspiring, to say the least. I love you with all of my heart. ❤️
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photo shoot. Love to you all
ReplyDeleteI love these photos so much! And I love you Molly!! I’m so sorry to hear about your emergency surgery this week. I hope you can get back to cuddling soon. I just don’t have words to tell you what an honor and a privilege it is to know your relentlessly cute, fierce, loving, fun family, I am so grateful to you for that! And thank you for this post!! -Molly F.
ReplyDeleteI've been praying for you here in Mexico, sending all my positivity to you. Your writing has inspired me for so long. I will carry your power and love with me always.
ReplyDeleteHi Molly, I just wanted to let you know that we are sending our love from Boulder Colorado. I know that we were not more than acquaintances, years ago in Pittsburgh, but I still wanted you to know that I am thinking about you and your family right now.
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I saw you and Amy . . . at a grocery store in Charlottesville, I think it was. You were very small, and Amy was simply all blonde, unruly curls. Both of you were beaming, and I thought, well, this is a special family. Kim was there, but I don't remember Ash . . . but really you two are the stars of that memory. I do remember thinking I'd probably keep up with this family for the rest of my life. And so I did. It's a great privilege to know you all. Love and red maple leaves always!
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing fair or easy about this. You are relentlessly inspiring though, Molly- You have been since I met you in 2nd grade and you will continue to be. With endless admiration and love to you and your family, Merry
ReplyDeleteMolly, the way you live your life and have fought this horrible cancer is beyond words. I am inspired by you, and it is because of people like you that I seek to better myself and savor each moment of my own life every single day. Thank you for allowing us to go on this journey with you. You are an Angel from Heaven that we never deserved here on earth. Each of us are so very lucky to been touched by you. It has been many years since we have seen each other but I will always have fond memories of my times at the Nichols house. The warmth, love and joy that I felt when visiting your home is something that always stuck with me and is one of the reasons why I wanted a large family of my own. Molly, I wish for you all the warmth, love, joy and peace in the world and I will continue to hope and pray for miracles. ❤️
ReplyDeleteSending love and light to you and you beautiful family Molly. Thank you for your beautiful sharing.
ReplyDeleteOops I didn’t mean to be anonymous - this is from Debra Seltzer ❤️ Ohio Braden cohort
DeleteMolly Nichols, you my friend are such an incredible inspirational human being. Bold Red Maple 🍁 definitely suites you in my opinion since our paths crossed in 1993. I believe you were 11, playing the violin, in a leotard most of the time with Jean shorts. Your bedroom at the house on college, neat, organized. The bathroom which housed and enormous amount of hair product. I love seeing that girls received the gift of the curls. Your hair was so long and always maintained. My memories of you were always honest. Your ambition and drive has been inside of you since creation. Never a doubt that you would move mountains in this lifetime. I’m grateful for our visit in Colorado years ago, and for Facebook allowing me to watch you activism, your wedding, and the birth of your babies. This is incredibly tragic for you, everyone who loves you, your beautiful family, and the world. Your roots run deep and far and your legacy will live in our hearts forever. Thank you for loving me and the kindness you’ve always shown. I love you dearly and I wish you peace.
ReplyDelete🍁💛🍁
Molly, I love your spirit and all the love in your ❤️. Continued joy to you all!
ReplyDeleteThese pics are flat out precious. We love you guys so much
ReplyDeleteMolly, we took French together in '97 at Dickinson. I'm so sorry to learn of your illness. I remember your kindness, intelligence, and remarkable maturity - a beautiful person, inside and out. My thoughts are with you and your family; I wish you all courage and love. Bisous de Toulouse.
ReplyDeleteLove to you and your family Molly from a colleague in the Detroit area, and from my family that extends beyond that into places like Guatemala and Honduras where you'll all always be welcome.
ReplyDeleteI check back here often to get my dose of the beauty, truth, and good you've put out into the world as long as I've known you. It's also amazing to come here and very clearly see how you inspire the same in others.
I continue to pray for you all and will continue to try and send the best that I can.
Much Love,
Kyle de Beausset
Molly sweetheart, Pete and I love and admire you so very much . From the time you and Liam, and the warm little bundle that was Fiona, arrived in Tacoma our love and respect for you and your family has simply continued to grow. We recall that first Thai dinner with you, all of us so excited about your new life in Tacoma! Then the visits with Ms Fi for milk and cookies , and the lovely walks around north Tacoma! The epic reunion with your folks when they visited!! What fun it has all been! And how unimaginably cruel this terrible cancer has become.
ReplyDeleteKnow that we will love you for ever, and be strengthened by your beautiful courage in facing this horrible disease. You are the best life offers, and we are so grateful to be your friends. We wish you swift healing, calm and peace, and warm loving cuddles with the girls.
All our love to you, Liam, and the girls xxxxx
I have only met you once Molly, but instantly your kind, curious, and welcoming light shone through. By the end of the evening, I felt like we were longtime friends. You are a beautiful person and the world is a better place for it. Please feel the love that you have put into the world radiating back to you.
ReplyDeleteHi Molly ❤️
ReplyDeleteits Julia from the Anne Braden Program. I just wanted to say I am thinking of you with so much love and care. It was such an honor to have you in our Braden cohort and I still remember the love, emotion, and warmth you brought to the group. Seeing you so open in your joy and sorrow during the program was so beautiful and really impacted me.
I know this is only one of the ways your joy and honesty and sincerity and passion has changed the communities and people around you for the better as it did for me. I don’t have the words for the unimaginable battle you and your family have been fighting but I am thinking of you and your family and sending you peace and care.
With so much love
Julia
sending you so much love, Molly! thank you for sharing the details of what's going on for you right now - its such an honor to know you. 🍁 🍁 🍁 🍁
ReplyDeleteMolly and family, sending our Love and Prayers for you at this time. You have the most Loving family and their strength will always be there for you. I love seeing you all together and the strength you all have.
ReplyDeleteMolly, you're an incredible light in this complex world. You move through life with such energy and strength. I wish you peace and love, and joy and laughter. Sending my utmost love and respect, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you so much, Molly, and your vibrant, beautiful spirit— bold red maple leaves will forever represent you in my heart. Thank you for sharing your journey with us through this blog— I’ve read your powerful words over the past year and a half with so much hope every time, rooting for you and your family, and reading on FB and here all the wonderful messages people have written - showing just how much you are loved and appreciated for your kindness and activism and just for who you are. It’s always heartwarming to see the photos of you with Liam, Fiona, Nora, your sisters, parents and friends smiling, laughing, and hugging throughout all this hardship. You are an absolute inspiration, a remarkable human.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know why but I have this flash of a memory of you in your house in Carlisle, when I was visiting Amy during the summer (maybe in 2000)—we were all just sitting around talking and you came in from your summer job - at a restaurant I think- you plopped down on the floor with us and pulled out a sandwich to eat, you just joined in and hung out with us, we caught up, we laughed, and I remember thinking how cool and confident you were— why that particular memory out of the few times I’ve gotten to see you in person, I don’t know, but it’s there and I’m happy to have that.
I hope that you are being comforted and cushioned by all the love of your dear family right now— warm snuggles with your daughters, who have the most incredible mother.
love, peace, and light to you and to your loved ones.
Je t’embrasse fort, Justine (in Bordeaux, France)
Molly, you are one someone that I have not known very long but whom I immediately recognized as someone I'd like to spend a lot more time with. You epitomize all the most fundamental adjectives: smart, passionate, fun, kind. You bring honesty and humility into your conversations, and I am better for our connection. I know everyone at RE-AMP who has been touched by you feels the same. Please let me know if I or anyone else at RE-AMP can do anything to support you as you enter hospice. Solidarity. --Gail. p.s. your kids are super cute!!
ReplyDeleteMolly, I never had the pleasure of meeting you in person. But I am so grateful for the strength and solidarity you brought to the Sierra Club community, and particularly your organizing within PWU. You are a bright light, and we are all sending you our very best right now.
ReplyDeleteDearest Molly: you and your family in these photos are incandescent and... transcendent. Excuse my zeal (now there's a Word for Wednesday....remember?? Ha ha ha) in re-posting what I sent late last night on your October blog before I saw this new page:
ReplyDeleteHonestly Molly, that maple-leaf vitality has never burned so bright. Your colors stun us. Your poise, lucidity of thought, expansive heart, presence of spirit, all defy gravity and leave us in awe. Just reading the outpouring of love and reflection on your page has infinitely enriched all our lives.
At Eagle Rock school, an onlooker would have been hard pressed to tell who was being mentored by whom, even in your first year. As your instructional specialist, I had the honor of witnessing you evolve as a leader of people. You made me a better teacher, and that work in progress, my dear, among your myriad legacies, definitely lives on.
We shared a deep connection, you and I, Molly, with our students, in the LRC, in the Lodge, at house meetings, and on the field. I will forever see you clad in Spruce green T-shirt and shorts, all cleats and long ringlets flying. We shared much mirth over our students’ antics. And we shared every detail of thought and emotion over the week’s events as we would wend our way down the canyon to Boulder on a rare day off together.
Among many contributions, Molly, you infused the curriculum with intellectualism and a vital dose of Post-Colonial literature. When you subsequently took charge of the department, you led with vision, poise, knowledge and maturity. I was so lucky to leave the program in your hands, and, for that smooth and happy transition, for that up-leveling, I have been forever grateful.
Although years went by and life came between us, in one phone call it has always struck me as though no time has passed.
A more recent memory is my trip to visit you in Pittsburgh, which plays perpetually on a rear screen of my mind in technicolor. Highlights included exploring your super hip neighborhood, hanging out with you among your impressively loaded bookshelves, playing with your dog, accepting my teaching post to Jordan in your backyard, which I took as a blessing, and gallivanting in downtown Pittsburgh, mostly around yummy local foods and coffee!
Best of all was the thrill of standing at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers (although I believe the first two join and form the third). I will always associate that spot with you, Molly, radiantly pregnant as you were with Nora.
Although I have not yet had the honor of actually meeting your daughters, I have relished every lively image of them that has come my way. The propensity in this family for theatrical garb is not lost on me. I dearly hope I might have the chance to share my own collection with them someday.
Molly, forgive me for indulging the possibly delusional but deeply human instinct to find meaning in the cruelest of circumstances. As we’ve all written, I’ve mostly raged against the night, and found no solace, while you have carried on like a saint.
I know you cringe at such epithets, especially that one, and have refused to consider your challenge as a battle, but this is what has come to me:
Somehow, the degree to which you have suffered has equated itself in my mind with the increasing struggle against the apocalyptic forces that threaten to consume our politics, people and planet.
As an activist, a vegan, a life partner and a mother whose children were born of integrity, raised on a minimum of 8 values plus 5 principles, and who already embrace at least 10 commitments, (that’s Eagle Rock jargon for anyone wondering), you have come to represent for me, and apparently for many, the essence of all that is good, pure, fair, honest, thoughtful, considerate, balanced, just, forward-thinking, hopeful, promising, and above all, life-affirming.
You shine bright enough, Molly Nichols, for all of us to bask in your glow.
Thank you and bless you.
All my love,
Alison Trattner
(This too was posted on the October page, so excuse redundancy if you saw it already)!The Trattners are sending you much love and tranquility from Paris, DC, Brooklyn and NJ.
ReplyDeleteThe way Molly, you have handled your illness
has been to dispense with pity
and throw yourself into letting your children
and immediate family and friends into the experience.
This involved so many emotions which I think
has empowered them all
to help you fight and win the most important battle….
They all had cancer and cancer
Never had them.
Because of that decision, they will be
so
much more
able to construct something
Permanent, Strong,
Hopeful
and full
of the flavor of
their remarkable mother, wife, and deeply
loved family member.
Gillian Trattner
Molly, we've never met, but I am inspired by your courage, positivity, and strength in all you are facing. The Sierra Club community is thinking about you and we are sending light, love, and prayers. PS. Your kids are adorable and truly blessed to have you as their mom.
ReplyDeleteMolly, although we've only met a few times irl, we feel as if we know you much better than that, thanks to this amazing blog. Anyone who reads it will see that you are strong, brave, loving, joyful, and fierce. The maple leaf metaphor is a wonderful gift from you to all of us. I'm sure that no one will ever see a maple in the fall the same way again, especially your little girls. For the rest of their lives, they will see those red and gold leaves and think of the bold, beautiful woman who did everything she could to have just a little more time with them. Liam will be reminded of the superhero he loved and married. And we will remember a remarkable woman who knew how to live. Sending you our love from Maryland.
ReplyDeleteDear Molly, Reading your words and seeing these pictures, my heart aches but there's so much joy in them. You'll always be a source of precious warmth to all of us. Thank you, my friend. Love, Judy
ReplyDeleteWe’ve never met but I think of you and your family. Cried my eyes out over your story more than once. I wish peace and comfort for your family and am humbled by your courage.
ReplyDeleteHey Molls,
DeleteMy heart skipped a few beats when I saw your latest update… it has been over a year since I had learned about your diagnosis. I had no idea the depth or severity. My heart is fumbling to catch up with reality… I’m not sure it can to be honest.
I see your light continues to reach so many, including mine. Thank you for all of your love— in all the ways you chose to be selfless, kind, and compassionate.
Being part of your crew in high school always brought me a sense of comfort and belonging. You have the ability to make one feel like the center of the universe— welcoming anyone with open arms, leaving them feeling loved and adored and important. I wish I had kept in touch. — I miss you dearly and hope our souls connect again on our journeys. I will keep my heart open and look forward to reuniting when we recognize each other’s stardust along the way. May the strength of your breathe continue to whisper in our ears, reminding us of the joy there is to be had in this earth side experience. From one soul sister to another, I love you forever.
~Jess (Malenich) Ewert
Molly – my admiration for you dates back to the early 90s when Tessa and I became friends in kindergarten. How lucky was I to have a best friend who had 3 amazing older sisters that I could look up to, learn from and love in such deep ways. Flash forward to today, and I still love and admire you just as I did when I was as a little girl. You have always been a role model to me. Someone who is incredibly smart, knows what she stands for, and speaks her truth in a way that doesn’t just get people to listen, but inspires them to feel something deeply. Your presence in my life for the last 30+ years, though much of it from afar, has made such an impression on me, and I will always look up to you and love you as one of the big sisters I never had. <3
ReplyDeleteLove to you all. I am thinking of you every day.
ReplyDeleteI met you only one time. It was at PLU, and you were standing with Liam and holding baby Fiona. We had a brief conversation, probably about Pittsburgh, and I could feel the circle of love. I remembering feeling then and feeling now that I wished I could have stayed in that circle longer. You have many gifts, including the gift of language. Your words are one of your legacies to your girls. I'm sure they'll turn to them again and again and again. I thank you for this gift, too. I am watching my world fill with bold, bright, orange-red maple leafs, and I am rooting for and celebrating each one of them.
ReplyDeleteMolly, your brightness shines through even the hardest news. You are someone whose clarity for what is right and just in this world is special, and I have no doubt your daughters will pick up your torch and keep running. Thank you for sharing these beautiful pictures of your family. I’m holding you close in my heart.
ReplyDeleteHolly Bender